Thursday, March 31, 2005

"The company, 'Response Unlimited' pays about $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 6,000 e-mail addresses. A spokesperson for the Schindlers confirmed that they had agreed to sell the information, but won't say for how much."Hmm. Her body isn't even buried yet. If Terri's parents write a book about the experience and don't give ALL the proceeds to charity, I'll assume their posturing was all a bunch of horsecrap.

"Mitch Hedberg, a St. Paul native whose space-case persona was as much part of his soul as it was his act, died early Wednesday morning in a New Jersey hotel room. He was 37. A medical examiner hasn't issued findings, but Hedberg's family is told he suffered a heart attack.""In England Smoky the Bear is not the forest fire prevention representative. They have Smacky the Frog. It's just like a bear, but it's a frog. I think it's a better system, I think we should adopt it. Because bears can be mean, but frogs are always cool. Never has there been a frog hopping toward me, and I thought 'man, I'd better play dead. Here comes that frog...' You never say here comes that frog in a nervous manner. It's always optimistic. Hey here comes that frog, al-right. Maybe he'll come near me so I can pet him, and stick him in a mayonnaise jar, with a stick and a leaf, to recreate what he's used to. And I'm pretty sure I'd have to punch some holes in the lid, because he's damn sure used to air. Then I can observe him, and he won't be doing much in his 16 ounce world." - Mitch Hedberg

"Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art."Lots of cool images, current posters too.

"PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose final years tethered to a feeding tube sparked a bitter feud over her fate that divided a family and a nation, died Thursday, her husband's attorney said.

Schiavo, 41, died quietly in a Pinellas Park hospice 13 days after her feeding tube was removed despite extraordinary intervention by Florida lawmakers, Congress and President Bush - efforts that were rebuffed at every turn by the courts.

Her death was confirmed to The Associated Press by Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, and announced to reporters outside her hospice by a family adviser.

A shy woman who avoided the spotlight, Schiavo spent her final months as the focus of a media frenzy and an epic legal battle between her husband and parents over whether she should live or die.

Protesters streamed into Pinellas Park to keep vigil outside her hospice, with many arrested as they tried to bring her food and water. The Vatican likened the removal of her feeding tube to capital punishment for an innocent woman.

Politicians repeatedly tried to intervene as her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, pleaded for their daughter's life, calling the removal of the feeding tube 'judicial homicide.'

'Something has to be done and has to be done quick,' Bob Schindler said, a week after the tube was removed March 18, as the family's legal options dwindled. 'I think the people who are anxious to see her die are getting their wish.' "R.I.P.--

"Gavin sez, 'On Monday, we re-launched what used to be known as The Screen Savers (where we've had Xeni, Cory & Mark on as guests) as Attack of the Show! and to celebrate we created a working eight-foot Nintendo controller." (more at link)
Awesome, no more thumb cramps.
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"StumbleUpon is different from typical internet search engines as we use member ratings to form collective human opinions on web site quality - only the best sites are seen because they've been positively rated by other members with similar interests.

If we are in your referral logs, one of our members has 'Stumbled Upon' your site or rated one of your pages as I-like-it Your site now has the chance to be seen by thousands of other community members! The fact that your site has received a positive rating from our members is a great accomplishment -- it shows that your hard work has been acknowledged by others and will now be shared among our users with an interest in what you have to offer. "Cool. Referal log spam. Wonderful. I check out their Press Coverage, their press is from 2002 - 2004, looks rosy. The site promises 'No Adware or Spyware', but I'm a doubting Thomas on that, try if you want, don't blame me, yeah? I guess I should be glad that whoever tagged SnarkySpot liked me, I am an Attention Ho Fo' Sho (AHFS). Here is the link that someone in the UK liked enough to tag as a 'thumbs up'.

Wonder what their business model is? Some sort of infomation gathering, I suppose.--

I have a gift. This gift is both a blessing and a curse. This gift is to see stupidity and know it when I see it.

I have on several occasions tried to engage people in discussing an angle of an issue that people but forth and believe it supports their cause when in it actually undermines their cause, but the people that have been willing to talk about it also have a hard time lighting a match.

The issue at had is this: Is homosexuality encoded in our genes?

If it is, then this series of genes could be identified? No?

If this series of genes is then known to be an abnormality could it be correct when the medical technique of Gene Therapy reaches an advanced state? And then would ALL babies be born straight?

I have always thought that the effort on behalf of the Gay community to show that being gay was genetic and not a choice and therefore not some bad moral decision would at some point backfire on them.

If it is shown that homosexuality is a result of gene defects just like MS or Downs Syndrome how much more ammunition does that give the far right? Will we then classify homosexuals as handicapped or just see them as being even more different from straight people. Will legislation then be passed preventing people from being born with this birth defect?

Well, in the name of this cause, legislation has been introduced to STOP a gay fetus from being aborted if a test can be developed that would identify them in a genetic way as ‘gay’.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

"Conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter was greeted with a mixture of standing ovations and heckling after she took center stage Tuesday night at Kansas University's Lied Center.

As soon as she stepped up to the microphone, Coulter fired off one zinger after another about liberalism while promising to answer questions from left-wing members in the audience who could 'thrash their way to a coherent thought.'

'I've come to find I like liberals a lot more,' Coulter said early in her speech. 'They're kind of cute when they're cold, shivering and afraid.'

Coulter spoke as the 37th J.A. Vickers Sr. Memorial Lecture Series lecturer to a crowd estimated by KU officials at about 1,800 people. The lectures, which began in 1971, were established through a gift to the Kansas University Endowment Association by the Vickers family of Wichita.

Coulter received several standing ovations during her speech, but she also found herself interrupted several times by a small, scattered group of hecklers.

'I think there are some people in the audience who meant to be at the sexual reorientation class down the hall,' Coulter said, in response to the heckling.

Moments later Coulter stopped and called for assistance from students when hecklers started in again and no one of authority was seen trying to stop them.

'Could 10 of the largest College Republicans start walking up and down the aisles and start removing anyone shouting?' Coulter asked. 'Otherwise, this lecture is over.'" (read full article at title link)Ha ha, they pwnd her narrow, shrewish ass. How delicious is it that she spoke at Kansas U.'s Lied Center?

"RALEIGH, NC—The ever-embattled tobacco industry suffered another blow Monday, as citizens' groups challenged the major smokeless-tobacco companies to confront the quality-of-life issues associated with secondhand spit.A non-chewing bargoer sits next to a tobacco chewer in Wilmington, DE. Above: A non-chewing bargoer sits next to a tobacco chewer in Wilmington, DE.

'This isn't the '50s, when you would see TV commercials with lab-coat-wearing doctors spitting chewing tobacco right on the examination-room floor,' said activist Helen Pertwee of The Great American Tobacco Backwash, a citizens' group dedicated to fighting the rising tide of secondhand tobacco spit in public places. 'In this day and age, we are much more informed about the consequences of secondhand spit, and non-chewers are refusing to expose ourselves to it.'" (Read the rest at The Onion)(spitooned from j-walk)--

The Adaptec 2110S RAID card in Fark's database server is dying.Now the machine won't even POST half the time, or when it doesrun, locks up during the SCSI BIOS init, or crashes often withfilesystem errors.

Based on some experience with one at work, and some info on Googlesuggesting it was upwards compatible, we sent an Adaptec 2120Sto replace it. It looks like the upwards compatible thing wasa bunch of crap though, and it won't see the old array -- sowe're going to have to reformat and reinstall everything. (Orrather Servint's going to do it for me based on my partitioningdirections, since I can't make the 9 hour drive anytime in thenext few weeks...)

I was hoping for Saturday afternoon, but that's not going to happen.We are now scheduled for Tuesday, so, expect some downtime.

---

Several more attempts were made to get the 2120S to see the array.Not having a copy of the bootable CD that might do it, we just decidedto wipe and reformat and reinstall everything (after taking threefinal backups). That seemed to go fine, until the card startedthrowing tons of SCSI write errors and timeouts while restoring thebackup, hinting at a bad drive, a bad cable, or bad drive firmware.After failing to find newer drive firmware from Fujitsu, we decidedto try replacing ALL the drives. It's taking a few hours to get thearray initialized, then the OS will be reinstalled and the backuprestored on top of it.

....and now that that's done, we've hit another hard drive firmwareissue, this time one with a known fix -- we're waiting on Seagateto send the patch now. No write errors this time, just timeouts.

OK. Drives are patched. We're still hitting timeouts but it'salways when restoring the exact same file, consistently -- whichmakes no sense at all (it restores fine on another machine fromthe same source archive). Anyway, we skipped that non-criticalfile and are restoring everything else now -- the OS is restored,the database about 10% in as of 5:15 pm ET. With luck we'll beup around midnight.

We may be up sooner than that; the database is importing fasterthan expected (finally something goes right for once). But itmay run slow because connectivity is a bit slower in theirtestlab for some reason, maybe a ethernet duplex mismatch orsomething.

Whoa. This ought to make some people angry and froth forth from the mouth.

The comments are pretty brutal. The Internet = No Holds Barred.--UPDATE: A friend at work found Terri Schiavo hanging out at myspace.com.Is this the 'official' start of Schiavo backlash? (Thanks for the link, Audrey!)

"Rock survivor Courtney Love is to make her film comeback by taking on the lead role in a biopic of legendary Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace." (title link for full article at The Guardian.)Something tells me that won't be such a great leap for Ms. Love. She's got the slutty part down pat, now just needs to practice the ol' sausage nibbling technique. Paris Hilton might make an appropriate understudy for the role.

I loved The Big Lebowski. I mean I really loved it. I have probably watched it 10 times and will watch it another 20 before I die, but that does not mean that I am going to ‘become’ a character in it.

This may seem an odd rant, but since I write them, I get to choose what’s in’em.

It seems to me that in today’s rough and tumble world, where nothing is a ‘given’ and we have destroyed every cultural and societal standard, that we cast about for belonging in a haphazard and trivial way.

I recently posted on this on darrenbarfoot’s blog regarding the forming of ‘childfree’ clubs so that like minded people could hangout together and be around others that shared this common interest and not be bombarded by people that have kids, so I will not repeat too much from what I said there.

So, now back to the Big Lame’oski. So you found an organization, get a website, and hold a fest, stars show up, and then grown people play dress up. Is this just a ‘fun’ thing to do or is it people searching desperately to add just a little bit of meaning to their lives?

Can we really have a meaningful life filled up with fan clubs, common interest clubs, and other randomness? Will this give us a sense of wholeness and a life well lived? I guess that is all a matter of perspective.

I am off to the Eastside Gothic Disabled People’s Alias watching party.

Boing Boing: SciAm apologizes for not endorsing creationism and missile-shields: "Scientific American's April Fools Day editorial apologizes for not endorsing creationism, missible defense shields, and the idea that global warming is a hoax."(more at the link)
HAHAHA! What a great prank! Intelligent designers foaming at the mouth with anger!
--

"We have all heard our parents and grandparents tell us money doesn't grow on trees and money doesn't fall from the sky. Help me prove them wrong! I am a strong believer that if everyone joins together, we can all create something really awesome."Forget Joe, give Monkeyman and Preach a dollar (or 2):

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Musician and artist David Byrne, known most widely as co-founder of the Talking Heads, has just launched an internet radio station that streams the music he digs. I spoke with Mr. Byrne earlier today about the project for NPR's "Day to Day." Part of the interview will be included in a segment airing on the show tomorrow about filesharing and cultural change -- but here's more. (full article at the link)Cool. I like the idea of a progressive, artist run station. Hope he's not just cashing in... wait... what's so wrong about cashing in?--

"This was a pretty interesting story from The Sunday Wichita Eagle Newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Was in a housing development around 119th st. South and Maple. Anyhow a resident in the area saw a ball bouncing around kind of strange like in the developments pond and when he went to investigate, it was a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a child's basketball which became stuck in its mouth. The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The resident tried numerous times to get the ball out but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball in order to deflate the ball and release the catfish. "True story, Snopes verified. (Hit the link to see more pics)

"The script and locations for Ocean's Twelve had been carefully kept secret, but a key scene was recorded in the coffeeshop 'De Dampkring.' The owner, Paul Wilhelm, told media the lead characters are no strangers there. 'We have Brad Pitt in our store a few times a year,' he said, 'all incognito with a beanie and glasses. Just sitting there smoking some. We've had George Clooney in, too. They are just nice people.'

Partying on the set in Amsterdam apparently got pretty stoney due to stars' easy access to legal pot. According to insiders, Warner Bros got word that the toking was causing production delays, translating into increased costs to get the film made."Well, what did Warner's expect? Full article at the title link.
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"Piers sez, 'Seeing as the new iPods don't come with docks, and no-one wants to spend $30 on a bit of plastic or metal to stand their iPods on, I've drawn up a templatefor a simple, functional and attractive iPod stand you can download as a pdf, print out, stick on some card and assemble. It's also released under a Creative Commons licence so anyone can distribute it or make improvements to the design and re-distribute it.'"
--

Monday, March 28, 2005

Exactly why I am supposed to impressed with the fact that this guy can stack pennies into piles and make things out of them? I don’t recall that the Egyptians used glue to build the pyramids, but I have never seen a sign saying , “hey Horus, no glue!”

And did this guy stop to think how many of these pennies could be asspennies?

* Who you gonna call: o Ghostbusters o I can't hear you o Louder"Hahaha! This has been gaining a lot of steam over the weekend, check out the tons of comments at the title link, lots of funny add ons, such as:

* Things across which Daddy has flown: o the ocean

* Things which Daddy has left behind for me: o a memory o unknown

* Things which we don't need: o no education o no thought control o no dark sarcasm in the classroom

* Conditions in which teachers are requested to leave them/us kids: o alone

* Things the having of which is dependent upon the eating of meat: o pudding

* Things which I don't need: o no arms around me o no drugs to calm me o anything at all

* Things which I have seen: o the writing on the wall

* Things which, all in all, are or were just bricks in the wall: o it o you

and...

places in which one is insane:- the membrane.- the brain.

don't:- try it- make me wreck shit hectic

(things which go) in the frying pan:- that ham- spam

I:--feel:- like the son of sam

--don't:- fuck with the big 4-0

--am:- thinking- out in the nine duce 'cad- the pirate pilot

--will:- jack your ass like a looter in a riot- explain- hit that bong and break ya off some

"TOKYO (Reuters) - A tussle has broken out in Japan's tradition-bound sumo world over the right to wear pants in the ring.

Gargantuan sumo wrestlers generally compete naked but for a 'mawashi', an arrangement of wrapped cloth that preserves a bare minimum of modesty.

Sumo's amateur association hit upon the idea of allowing shy youngsters to wear 'sumo pants', a more substantial garment similar to cycling shorts, to try to boost the dwindling numbers of children taking up the sport, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun said on Thursday.

'Pubescent kids are not going to want to take part if they don't look cool,' Yomiuri quoted one local amateur sumo official as saying.

The sport's professional body, the Nihon Sumo Kyokai, however, has made clear that it will not allow wrestlers in pants to take part in youth tournaments at the venerable national stadium in Tokyo, the paper said.

'The national stadium has its rules and ways of doing things,' the paper quoted a Sumo Kyokai spokesman as saying. 'We have no intention of allowing children in pants into the ring.'"Hahaha! I love the title of the article. Most sumos I've seen would need to be greased down and shoehorned into pants. Picture that, if you will. Poor ol' cotton fibers, what did they ever do to deserve this?--

"Bits On Wheels is a Mac-only Bittorrent client. It's freeware (but not open source or public domain).

The neat thing that sets it apart is the 3D swarm view. Bittorrent works by enabling participants to self-organize into a swarm: a group of machines group-hosting a particular file at a given time. When you connect to a Bittorrent tracker, your client can coordinate with others also connected to that tracker. Machines with the entire file are called seeders; they share pieces of the file with machines seeking the file. It's akin to book printing through coordinated xeroxing: I'll do the first ten pages, you do the next, then we trade. Easy.

The 3D swarm view shows yourself in the center. Hosts you are connected to lie around the periphery: although a Bittorrent swarm can be a complex graph, the swarm view is self-centered. Hosts around the edges may be connected to each other, but that is not shown. "I don't have a Mac, but since I'm in the computer animation industry, I know a bunch of peeps that do. I will pass this on to them to road test.

Ok, this is it. I have few places of retreat these days that are not intruded upon by outside forces. Namely, politics, religion, and the entertainment world. One of these is when I am enthroned in the bathroom and the other, and perhaps more important, is when I am enjoying a cup of premium Star Bucks coffee. This I can not do on a regular basis anymore as it sets off my newly acquired acid reflux, so I have to enjoy this on an ever increasingly rare schedule, so to fuck with this time is not good. And fuck with it they are.

So it seems some marketing person deemed it a good idea to begin putting witticisms on the sides of coffee cups. Big ups to you, whomever you are, and I am sure your boss was like, “damn Brad, that is a good idea son!”, but take it from me it was an amazingly stupid and trivial idea you *****sucker (sorry I watch Deadwood so those just slip our every now and again).

So, now guess what! The conservatives have put their collective Borg brains together and are protesting that these saying are now TOO liberal. Forget the massacres in Africa, the war in Iraq, impending doom of North Korea and the rapid Globalization and changing environment of the world economy, we have important issues to settle and bicker about, that must be addressed immediately, namely that ‘the other side’ is getting too much copy space on the side of a GOD DAMN COFFE CUP!

And you thought that the people re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic and those fools searching for the Bible Code were wasting time?

“Considering Starbucks sells millions of cups of coffee each day - some specialty drinks at $4 and up - it's no surprise some customers have complained to Starbucks' Web site, labeling the campaign "offensive" and the company a proponent of "the destruction of family values and virtues."

Family values? Something on the side of a paper coffee cup either contributes to or destroys family values in America? How about the vast contribution that STUPIDITY makes?

Sunday, March 27, 2005

I read via RSS about Darren's hard drive refreshing session, made me wax nostalgic for the days of supremely overpriced RAM and slow livin' times of the 1.44 MB floppy drive. (Can you believe floppy drives sell for around $17.99? I figured floppy drives were given out free with gum or something by now...)

Amen to this post AND your data. I've had to do the HDS (Hard Drive Shuffle) a few times since 1995.

I begrudgingly gave away my first self-purchased computer recently, a DX-2 50 mhZ , 280M HD with a smoking 16M of RAM. I remember paying $300 bucks for an extra 8M of RAM in the mid '90s, WTF?

Ah, the memories of backing stuff up to floppies. The year was 1995, while I was working at Barnes & Noble as a magazine dept. plebe, I had a scheme to take all of the floppies from computer magazines that didn't sell and somehow sell them for .10 each.

Ridiculous.

Needless to say, that Great Plan went absolutely nowhere, but I had a shitload of floppy disks, let me tell you. Still have some of them, as a matter of fact.

I'm looking at an install disk from CompuServe (an H&R Block Company) WinCIM Ver. 2.0.1 and a floppy of Spry Mosaic Direct. That disk has a Customer Support number on the disk, a little time traveler from the past: 206-515-2995

U.S. Soldiers Now Protected by Magnetic Ribbons"Committed to giving American troops both physical protection and moral support, the U.S. military is now providing its soldiers with magnetic ribbons bearing encouraging messages such as 'Support Our Troops' and 'God Bless the USA,' the Pentagon says.

The ribbons, it turns out, are strong enough to protect against bullets from a Kalashnikov rifle or even shrapnel from an improvised explosive device. Even better, they let our men and woman in uniform know that we care."Sarcastic humor, but valid nonetheless.
--

Inns appeared in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and were apparently fairly common, especially in towns, by the fifteenth century. The earliest buildings still standing today, such as New Inn, Gloucester, or King's Head, Aylesbury, date from this time. While inns provided lodgings for travelers, taverns were drinking houses seeking to cater for the more prosperous levels of society. The leading taverners in larger towns were themselves vintners or acted as agents for vintners. The Vintner's Company of London, for instance, secured an essential monopoly of the retail trade in the city in 1364. A tavern of the later Medieval period might be imagined as a fairly substantial building of several rooms and a generous cellar. Taverns had signs to advertise their presence to potential customers, and branches and leaves would be hung over the door to give notice that wine could be purchased. Some taverns sold wine as their only beverage, and a customer could also purchase food brought in from a convenient cook-shop. Taverns seldom offered lodgings or very elaborate feasting, such as would be expected at inns. Pastimes like gambling, singing, and seeking prostitutes were a more common part of the tavern scene.Huzzah! Pass the mead 'round and fix thine orbs upon this site, tales of woe and cunning abound! Have thee a staunch heart and learn how things were back then. They would consider us all magicians, sayeth Arthur C. Clarke

(Verily, I pluck'd yon link from the depths of bibi's box, forsooth!)--

"Things go wrong-- which is awfully annoying of them-- and then comes the really difficult thing: explaining what happened. What do you do when the old excuses (my dog ate it, it's in the mail, mistakes were made) have been used once too often? Why, you come to Metaverse for one of 3.6 million different convincing, ready-made excuses!"Rockin'. You can select various excuse types to be generated (Distraction, Medical, Insulting, etc...) Here's an Insulting one I clicked up:

As for you, don't lay a trip on me. I got news for you: you aren't going to die from it. Some of us have to work for a living. But I suppose I'll never get any peace till I say it-- I'm sorry. Jeez, people can be so unevolved.--

Saturday, March 26, 2005

"Podcaster and CBC tech dude has a podcast series called “How to do stuff”. In this episode, he gets his ass waxed by a professional esthetician. He’s a good man, suffering for our amusement." (read more at the title link)
Ouch.
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"bigbear writes ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Firefly' creator Joss Whedon has signed on to write and direct the big screen adaptation of the DC Comics character Wonder Woman. The film is being produced by Joel Sliver ('The Matrix'). No word yet on who will play the 'iconic female heroine of our time.''"I vote that they pick an actress who would make Linda Carter's 70s era boobies proud...--

BANKSY - Mona Lisa with a rocket launcher

Man, these are funny and bizarre in an intentionally bad soap opera way. Watch all the Pre-made clips (Go to the link and click on 'Innocent Escapes'). One of the guys at work (Ray) said that they reminded him of the Jack Handey 'Deep Thoughts' segments on Saturday Night Live. I concur.

I don't know if they will sell a lot of paper towels with these, but funny is always good. Who knew Georgia-Pacific had it in them?

I see that cd and cds are #s 2 and 3 on the search. I'll simplify it, the term 'cds' covers that one category, and there are currently 232531 items therein on eBay. You can get a bit brain boggled by the sheer volume of merchandise available on eBay. The beauty of their business model is that they are similiar to Wall Street brokerages, they make money coming and going, whether your 'item for sale' sells or not, by virtue of their listing fee(s) (20 cents or so per item) as well as additional 'spruce up your listing' charges. If something sells, then BAM, they get a cut. Brilliant.--

"Tommy says it all started when he saw his high-school crush Naomi Hunters working at the cash. “She’s a real hottie”, says Tommy. “I couldn’t contain myself (and) when I saw that margarine I just had to do it.” Naomi says she’s flattered and disgusted by all this. “But mostly disgusted”, she adds.

Bill Simpson sees it differently though. “If somebody wants to slap a big handful of margarine on their unit and pleasure themselves that’s fine with me, but it’s my job to make sure it’s Imperial margarine on their unit and not some cheap store brand.”"HAHAHA! Fake news is greatness.

I've seen mothers choose their man over their own flesh and blood, I've seen others choose alocohol over friendship.

I sacrifice no more for others, part of me has fucking died and I hate this shit.

I'm living every mans nightmare and that single fact alone is kicking my ass, I really must be fucking worthless. This place never changes, it never will. Fuck it all."From everything I've seen, he was a 16 year old bomb about to blow, nobody recognized the signs.
--

"I know, I know, your house stinks. You left something in the crisper, the garbage hasn’t been emptied all week, the dishes in the sink are growing mold and the dog left something by the backdoor you can’t quite identify.

Wouldn’t it be better if your house smelled like Jesus?"This is another one of those weird things I've seen posted on several sites. Apparently Jesus smelled vaguely of flowers and cinnamon. The South Dakota couple that makes them charges $18 a pop (ugh, that just gave me a weird mental image) and call the holy light source His Essence. Something is very wrong about that, sorta like that joke about 'Cream of Sum Yung Gai'.

The 'ick' factor is strong in this product, but I bet people are buying it in droves, wafting the scent of the Lord all about them. Is it appropriate to be lounging in a hot tub sipping cognac with these candles burning around you?
--

"Venturing back to the world of Tough Guys and tougher situations, Calling Manga Island takes a look at Hiroshi Takahashi's 'Worst.' With two issues out already and a third on the way this month, 'Worst' joins the emerging list of manga coming out these days with the tough guy anti-hero as the protagonist. "The whole Comic Book Resources site is a must stop for all the scoop on comics, check it out. A guy at work recommended 'Calling Manga Island' column as a good source of info on new manga titles. Tetsuo!
--

Friday, March 25, 2005

Liveshot.com has come up with an idea think I think is revolutionary (I will explain latter)

You can log onto their website and control a cam that runs a rifle. You can then aim the rifle and shoot things in real time. Paper targets, animals, and I guess any human that is dumb enough to walk down range.

This Craigslist poster has the right idea: donate your persistent vegetative state in advance to be cynically manipulated for the cause of your choice.-----If I see one more person blowing a horn dressed in Biblical garb outside of Terry’s hospital talking about how Sky Daddy wants her to live as long as possible I may go postal on a National level.- preach

"SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- A diner at a Wendy's fast food restaurant in San Jose, California, found a human finger in a bowl of chili prepared by the chain, local officials said Wednesday.

'This individual apparently did take a spoonful, did have a finger in their mouth and then, you know, spit it out and recognized it,' said Ben Gale, director of the department of environmental health for Santa Clara County. 'Then they had some kind of emotional reaction and vomited.'""What, you didn't order the Jeffrey Dahmer Special?"

Someone gave that patron the finger in an over-the-top way. I've heard of UFIA, so does this qualify as UFIC?--

Transparent Screens: A photoset on Flickr

A slick mind trick, move your laptop or monitor briefly out of the way, take a snapshot of the space behind it from the same relative viewing angle that you would be sitting in front of said computer. Then it's just a matter of scaling the image to give a trompe l'oeil effect. Nifty.

I think it would be cool if we could have transparent screens. Probably not really useful, but awesome and useful don't always have to be compatible.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

The Wealthy Blogger is effectively a personal money management blog from two guys who have a lot to say, but not a lot of credentials behind them. Unless The School of Hard Knocks qualifies. And, really, I think it does.Who needs books, when you have the Internet?

(I kid. I prefer books, but surfing is it's own distinct thang. Also, books typically don't need an extension cord, and you can chuck a book at someone much easier than with your typical computer.)
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"Meet others with herpes here at MPwH. We are the largest online H community, providing the finest social resources for people like us. Most of our services are free. We have thousands of personals ads, discussion boards, chat rooms, support areas, and much more. You can be as private or as open as you like! You don't have to be alone. Come and join us!"There is a niche market for everything.
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"Wooster Collective's exlusive photo shoot of Banksy and his work in action at New York's most famous museums. Link "Awesome. I saw this on Wooster the other day, forgot to toss it out here. I love the idea that Banksy dressed up like a British retiree and waltzed into these museums, hung his art up, and walked out. As any shoplifter worth his salt can tell you, if you are calm, cool, and act like you know what you are doing, you can get away with a lot.
--

1995 Pig Lady

"Alex from Death Attack has got balls. He's got a tee that's envisioned Mickey Mouse as a happy go lucky suicide bomber, complete with blood dripping off his hands and a turban. It's as powerful an image as it is ammusingly stupid, but it's still punk as fuck.

At $10.00 a shirt, we suggest you buy two before Disney gives him a smack on the back of the hands."Wow. Yeah, I bet Disney's lawyers will be all over this one. $10 is a good deal though.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

" BLAKE: I’m going to get a job. I’m broke. Right now, I couldn’t buy spats for a hummingbird. What did Johnny Carson say? You’re innocent until proven broke. Well, by the time Gerry and these troops got here, it was the bottom of the barrel. I was a rich man. I’m broke now. I got to go to work.

But before that, I’m going to go out and do a little cowboying. Do you know what that is? No, you don’t know what that is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

BLAKE: Cowboying is when you get in a motor home or a van or something like that, and you just let the air blow in your hair, and you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot one-handed nine ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you." (more at the link)Anderson Cooper is wearing me thin with bringing up the 'cowboying' phrase on his CNN show every stinking night.

How old is this guy anyway? Does his local Wal-Mart not stock any Grecian Formula?

They are on the left side there, just seeing how it works. The regular Google Ads sucked eggs. Revenue-wise, maybe this will be more useful to the Snarky Federation of Bored Surfers AND help defray our beer costs.

On that note, would it kill ya to hit the tip jar every now and then? Preach and I love dancing for your dollars here at Snarky! Why do you hate America? Show some love.

These Chuck Taylors were designed during his internship with Converse and should drop in July 05. Timothy describes his inspiration for the design: "I wanted it to look like a doodle you might do in high school during a rather dry math class. So this hypothetical high schooler is somewhat enthralled by Chuck Taylor (who in this case is to be considered a real person and quite a heartthrob)."Sweet! Man, I have a pair of Chuck Taylor kicks, makes my feet sweat something fierce, not so great on the ol' arches. I would put up with it for this slick graffiti, though.--

"Mark Cuban has emerged as a potential savior of CBGB,the New York club that is considered the birthplace of punkbut now faces eviction.

According to this Associated Press report, CBGB owessome $91,000 in back rent and faces a potential doublingof its monthly nut of $19,000. And that's just too much, saysHilly Kristal, founder of the club that incubated such bands asthe Talking Heads, the Ramones and Blondie in the 1970s.

Enter Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks probasketball team who became a billionaire when he soldBroadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. 'It's an icon of theNew York music scene,' Cuban told the AP in explaininghis offer of assistance."--

"MICHIGANTOWN, Indiana (AP) -- An Indiana pet storeowner says he sees the image of Satan on the shell of a turtlethat was the only survivor of a store fire in October."Bullshit flag on this one. I had lunch with Satan just last week atTaco Bueno (he really digs the hot sauce there, go figure), let metell you, our man Lucifer looks nothing like that. That turtle imagelooks more like that rabbit furry dude from Donnie Darko. Who areyou gonna believe, me or johhny-come-lately CNN? I'm not evengoing to bother to include an image for this one, here's a image link from CNN,suck up their bandwidth, they can afford it. --

Monday, March 21, 2005

In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC? A disturbing 8 minute short film on the recent history and (possible) future of the news. media. The film lays out a plausible competition between Google and Microsoft, where each swallows and assimilates smaller players, while bringing technology and automation to the newsmedia industry...Cool short film from the future. They are still using Flash in 2014? Nifty.

"A Bible created especially for girls age 13-16 that includes profiles of fictional teenagers discussing oral sex, lesbianism and 'dream' guys is drawing sharp criticism from some Christian parents who say such material should not appear alongside Scripture.

The 'True Images' Bible, published by Zondervan, promises on its dustcover to 'strengthen your relationship with God, family, friends and guys.'" (more at link)

Add on Edit by preach:

Please leave all of this sex and relationship stuff out of my violence, gay bashing, polygamy, war, and end of the world Bible goodness.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

- You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.- You are not allowed to touch a wall.- When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is 'out.'- I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.- The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of 'counter-tactics' training.- There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.* The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.

I set my magic number at 30, but upon reflection, I think I could take on a few more. How many could you take on? "IT'S GO TIME, MUNCHKINS!!! LOFL.

Man, what a vivid mental picture I get when I visualize this one. The comments are varied and great, all 39 (that's right, 39) pages of them. Here's an example from page 1 of the comments:

No way you can take on 30. I think the number is in the single digits.

Also, does the fact that I might have a hard time really hitting a 5 year old matter? Or should I just assume that if the situation were to arise I could go after them full on?

or...

...damn, this is going to require much reflection. Someday when I'm uber rich I'm gunna buy a [censored] load of 5 year olds on the black market and try this outor...

I would go up to 53.

Ity would be a wholescale slaughter. Those little people would be in a world of pain.

Oh and training them? 5 year olds have a 10 second attention span. Half of them still piss there pants . Think they can remember team work and martial arts?

The heart of Jeremy Szuder was spawned in La Mirada, California in September of 1972, a time still ripe with good tastes. Szuder’s palette was filled with heaping doses of Californian nostalgia, his parents’ vinyl collection, plenty of animals, and too many Saturday morning cartoons.

His freshman year of high school, Szuder published his own skater/bmx/punk rock zine and named it, “The Thrashing Edge”. The rag thrived at home and abroad for half a decade. This endeavor gave Szuder an opportunity to combine his talents as a photographer, writer, and underground culture enthusiast. This project was an accomplishment; it inspired other freaky kids to start their own publications.

In 1992, Szuder created the images that spawned the La Habra-based, independent company Generic Clothing. He served as sole graphic designer for this company as well as its offspring: Flirt Clothing, Bike Skateboards, and Media Skateboards. His commercial pursuits have not been confined only to apparel and gear. A few murals can be seen at X-Records in Norco and Acapulco Gold in downtown Los Angeles. Graphic arts continue to be an important facet of Szuder’s career.

In 1994 his musical passions finally led him to the drum throne of a five piece, eclectic Rock and Roll band called Los Cincos. The band received steady support from the quintessential indie record label Sympathy for the Record Industry. The band played, toured, and recorded successfully until early 1999.

The blossoming L.A. underground art scene has inspired his art tremendously. Influences include antique store mystique, 50’s kitsch, and underground comics. These days Szuder’s media of choice are pen and paper, oil and acrylic, and even multi-media collage. His work can be viewed at galleries and art shows around Southern California. He shows art and dj’s at monthly Cannibal Flower events.Lots of eye treats, music, writings on Jeremy's site. The skateboard deck paintings in the galleries rock.

Friday, March 18, 2005

"There was a time when burning a blank CD-ROM in your own home sparked feelings of wonder and joy as if you were performing a minor miracle. What once seemed like a technical marvel has, like so many small wonders, become routine."(read more @ link)
I hate it when I buy a fat stax of 50 or 100 blank CDs, and find out every 5th one is potentially a dud. But I love cheap, so I can only blame myself. Bring on the ten cent 1 gig Flash memory!
--

"George Lucas is such a fan of the latest 3-D technology that he is planning to remaster all of the 'Star Wars' films for rerelease in 3-D says today's The Hollywood Reporter.

Appearing as part of a sextet of high-profile directors (James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez and Randal Kleiser) promoting 3-D and digital cinema at ShoWest on Thursday, Lucas said he hadn't yet committed to a precise schedule but hoped to have the first film ready for the 30th anniversary of the original 'Star Wars' movie in 2007 and that he would then rerelease one 'Star Wars' film per year in 3-D.

Cameron is in preproduction on the 3-D film 'Battle Angel,' planned for a 2007 release. Zemeckis has two 3-D features in production, and Rodriguez is readying 'The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D' for release in the summer. Jackson, who is currently filming 'King Kong,' announced no specific 3-D plans, but according to sources he has installed a 3-D master suite in his production offices in New Zealand."Does the man not have enough money?